4. Jacob and Esau: Feuding, Brooding Brothers
4
Jacob and Esau
Iwillkillmybrother. Such malice has not been expressed since Cain killed Abel. But Esau’s fury is uncontained. Fortunately for Jacob, Esau waits, not wanting the sin of murder to desecrate the period of mourning his father, who he assumes is near death. By that time, Jacob has the good sense to get out of town.
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.[1] The apostle Paul, speaking for God, writes these harsh words. But the Genesis account is far more gentle in its telling. Indeed, there is no indication at all that God hates Isaac’s dear son Esau. But Rebekah, not Isaac, is the one who will maneuver events for the benefit of her favorite son—and God’s chosen one. Esau will sow his wild oats with trashy Hittite women, while Jacob will be sent away to wrangle with his wily uncle Laban, a man who has all the cunning of his sister Rebekah and more.
About all Jacob has in common with his father Isaac is that he also is God’s chosen younger son. Jacob is his mother’s boy and with her prodding will prove to be fully as clever and manipulative as she is. But there is another side of Jacob that will emerge—his deeply spiritual side as he wrestles with God. Indeed, the good and bad will war inside him and will play out publicly even as it will generations later with David, who also wrestles with God.
Both Jacob and David, with multiple wives, are less than admirable in their family relationships. They would be accused of having significant baggage if they were running for office today. Yet both are uniquely blessed by God and stand head and shoulders above others in the lineage of God’s chosen people. Jacob is named Israel, and David is ever associated with the city from where the Son of David will appear.
The book of Genesis and Paul’s letter to the Romans are not the only books of the Bible that make reference to Jacob and Esau and their descendants. Obadiah begins his prophecy with words directed toward Edom and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. God is calling for all the nations, the “godless” included, to declare war on Edom. In fact, he speaks very directly to Esau himself. Thieves will “take Esau apart, piece by piece, empty his purse and pockets.” God does not quickly forget sins of the past: “Because of the murderous history compiled against your brother Jacob, You will be looked down on by everyone. You’ll lose your place in history. . . . Esau will go up in flames, nothing left of Esau but a pile of ashes.”[2]
The writer of Hebrews also refers to Esau and Jacob, first in chapter 11, crediting Isaac for blessing both of them, but then in the following chapter calling Esau up short. Readers are warned: “Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.”[3]
But it is Paul (paraphrasing Malachi) who, in speaking for God, lets the ax fall: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”[4] Seen in another light, this passage is not so severe. Paul is speaking of God’s election and is illustrating the doctrine by calling to mind the Old Testament story. In reference to Malachi, he says: “Later that was turned into a stark epigram: ‘I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.’”[5] As such, Paul is not saying God hated Esau, but this was a common witticism.
In life, Esau actually fares better than is typically presumed. A key question is, did Jacob actually steal the birthright? He is forced to flee and earn his wealth by hard labor. When he returns home two decades later, he gives gifts to Esau, who has prospered with his family inheritance and has presumably looked after his parents in old age—the benefits and responsibilities of an older son. So who really held the birthright?
Like Jacob and Esau, Rachel is referenced outside Genesis. In the context of the Jewish exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah speaks of her as weeping for her children. In the Gospel of Matthew, her weeping becomes a metaphor for the sorrow felt when Herod decrees the murder of all the baby boys in Bethlehem: “Rachel weeping for her children, Rachel refusing all solace, Her children gone, dead and buried.”[6]
Leah, in the popular imagination, has not fared as well as Rachel. Her honor is derived through her descendants. Most notably, her son Judah is progenitor of the tribe from which Jesus is born.
Jacob: Clever, Crafty, and Destined for Greatness
In the biblical drama involving Jacob and Esau, there is no question that Jacob has the starring role. Esau is certainly a significant supporting actor, but he competes with the likes of Uncle Laban and Jacob’s wives for stage time.
Though the younger of the twins, Jacob is destined at birth to inherit the patriarchal line from his father and grandfather. This is a matter of far more significance than merely inheriting wealth. It is a monumental turn in the religious realm. Amid all the gods in the ancient world, the true God would often be identified as The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—not Esau. Indeed, if God had been playing by the so-called rules, he might have been referred to as the God of Abraham, Ishmael, and Esau. But the Bible often presents God coloring outside the lines. Thus he colored when fashioning Jacob.
God, however, does not pass the mantle on to Jacob as a matter of wholly divine course. Jacob, with his mother’s scheming, acts on his own and often does so in a less than admirable way. As a fetus he fights his brother, struggling to establish preeminence in birth order. So ferociously do they fight in the womb that their mother contemplates death as a better option than carrying them to term. But God settles her nerves by explaining what is going on. The twins represent two future nations, the younger ruling over the older.
Jacob is tenacious from the start, grasping his brother’s heel for a free ride through the birth canal, though in actuality trying to pull him back so that he could win that all-important birth race. They are anything but identical twins. Unlike his vigorous outdoorsman brother, Jacob is more sedate and settled, preferring a domestic life in the family compound. As such, he is his mother’s favorite. It is under her tutelage that he no doubt learns to cook—and connive.
One day Esau comes in from the field, exhausted from working in the blazing sun. Whom should he encounter but Jacob, leisurely cooking up one of his culinary delights—red meat stew. Esau asks for a bowl. He is starving, or at least he says he is. If Esau is toiling in the field, why should his brother not share the stew with him? It’s the least he could do. But the wily Jacob recognizes in an instant that he has his brother in a vulnerable position. Esau is independent—has probably never needed a thing from his little brother until now.
So Jacob goads him. I’ll make a deal with you. You get the stew; I get the rights as firstborn. The proposal is so ludicrous that Esau blows him off. I’m totally famished—starving to death. What’s the use of the birthright if I’m dead? Jacob had never imagined it would be so easy. He makes Esau swear an oath before he agrees to give his brother any food.
Everyday Life
Birthright and Blessings
Jacob, the second-born twin, cunningly appropriated both the birthright and blessing from his older brother Esau. The birthright is the larger inheritance the older son receives, while the blessing is the father’s entreaty to God for the son’s success and well-being. Inheritance traditions, however, were anything but rigid in ancient Israel. Indeed, time and again the younger son was favored over the older. Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and David are prime examples. Even God, in establishing the covenant line, often passed over the oldest son, sometimes with the support of a strong woman, as in the case of Rebekah.
Yet the status of the firstborn held great significance among the Israelites and other cultures. And among sons, being the oldest generally carried a significant advantage. He was first in line for the role of head of the family, should his father die prematurely. His entitlement upon his father’s death was a double share of the estate. Along with that, however, came the obligation to care for his mother should she survive his father. A further responsibility was seeking husbands for unmarried sisters.
Such inheritance customs were necessary—and complicated—in the case of polygamous fathers. Jealousy among brothers arises in every generation. Family rivalry, in fact, is one of the prominent themes of the Old Testament. Few are the accounts of deep brotherly love—unless between an unrelated David and Jonathan.
For a bowl of stew, Esau traded his birthright, an incident that seems to be a necessary prelude to Jacob’s receiving the blessing from his father.
After that the household is facing famine, and the twins travel with their parents to sojourn in the land of Gerar, in the land of the Philistines. This journey is in many ways a metaphor for their lives. They are always on the move, facing problems wherever they go. From their parents comes a continual flow of mixed messages: hospitality on the one hand, deception on the other.
The years pass and Isaac grows old as the twins are approaching middle age. Jacob, ever aware that the birthright is now his, also wants the blessing. So when his mother, now old herself, concocts a scheme to outsmart her husband, Jacob’s only objection is that he fears it won’t work. But he acquiesces when his mother offers to take the curse upon herself if it doesn’t pan out. Curses and blessings are critical elements in the ancient world.
So Jacob, arms bound in goatskins and wearing Esau’s clothes, brings his father a tasty meal his mother has prepared. When he is questioned about his identity, he holds out his hairy arms and lies, telling his father he is Esau. He sounds like Jacob but he smells like Esau. So he gets the blessing.
When Esau learns what has happened, he is furious. Jacob has tricked him before, but this is identity theft, pure and simple. It’s a malicious crime, and he is not about to let the liar get away with it. He will terminate the trickster once and for all. But Mother Rebekah gets a tip from an insider and insists Jacob get out of town in a hurry. As usual, she has a plan. He can escape to the safety of her brother Laban—at least until Esau has calmed down.
Before Jacob leaves, his father, echoing his mother, tells him not to take a local wife, rather to arrange with Uncle Laban to marry one of his daughters. Then Isaac bestows another blessing on him.
While he is traveling to Paddan Aram to Uncle Laban’s spread, Jacob stops for the night. It is after sundown, he’s on the run, traveling light with no apparent camping gear. So he lies down on the ground, using a stone for a pillow. Strange. But what is about to happen is stranger yet. He has a dream and sees a stairway reaching from the ground all the way up to heaven, angels passing each other as they climb up and down. Suddenly God appears right in front of him, identifying himself as the God of Grandfather Abraham and Father Isaac. God then bestows on him the surrounding land, promising protection and blessings and descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth.
Jacob wakes up and realizes that for the first time he has encountered God. He is both awestruck and terrified. God is in this place, the very gates of heaven. To mark this holy ground he props up the stone pillow, anoints it with oil, and names the spot Bethel, meaning “God’s house.”
But Jacob is still not prepared to make a complete commitment. He brazenly formulates a conditional vow: “If God stands by me and protects me on this journey on which I’m setting out, keeps me in food and clothing, and brings me back in one piece to my father’s house, this GOD will be my God.”[7] Then and only then will he truly worship God. He further pledges to give back a tenth of what this God gives to him—a most favorable business transaction, since he is running for his life and appears to have taken nothing with him. Indeed, his hijacking God for 90 percent of the take tops his brazen trading of the stew for a birthright.
Jacob continues his journey and arrives at a well, where he finds three shepherds with their flocks. He wonders why they are not watering their sheep and returning to graze. They explain that they have to wait for other shepherds to help them remove the rock needed to keep intruders away. He also learns they are from Haran and know his uncle Laban. In fact, Laban’s daughter appears with her father’s sheep, right on cue as Jacob is single-handedly rolling away the huge boulder. (Where does a homeboy obtain this kind of strength? one might ask.) He waters her sheep, kisses her, breaks down weeping, and explains that he is her cousin. She runs back and relates the news to her father, who hurries to meet Jacob, kisses him, and brings him home.
Jacob gives Uncle Laban the details of all that has happened back home. The reader can only wonder about those messy details that wily Jacob leaves out. Did he tell his uncle about how his mother connived to fake his identity in order to get the blessing from his father? Did he tell how he had traded stew for the birthright? Actually, if he had, his cunning uncle might have been impressed. Indeed, the two would have been a match for each other, but Jacob has become almost immobilized. He has fallen helplessly in love with a beautiful girl.
After Jacob has stayed on for a month, Laban offers to pay him for his work. He asks him what a fair wage would be, no doubt surmising what his nephew really wants. So smitten by love is Jacob that he offers seven years of hard labor for the beautiful Rachel. The girls here in Haran are high priced. Indeed, Jacob’s mother was sold for gifts that weighed down ten camels. Jacob is broke; all he can give his uncle is his time.
The seven years fly by quickly as he keeps his eye ever on the gorgeous girl. But Jacob does not want to work any longer than he has to. He keeps track. “Give me my wife,” he boldly says to Laban when the seven years are up. “I’m ready to consummate my marriage.”[8]
So Laban throws a big party, the guests eating, drinking, and making merry. Then he presents the veiled bride to the starry-eyed groom, and the couple make a quick exit, Jacob bringing her to his bed. But Jacob has been had. Not until morning does he realize that Leah, Rachel’s older sister, is in bed with him. He is seething. Laban is a lying weasel—a sleazy, shifty-eyed, smooth-talking cheat. (Jacob should know.) And dear Leah? Nice girl though nothing to look at, but she’s not his heartthrob Rachel. Jacob’s mother Rebekah had used animal skins to deceive; her brother Laban uses a veil.
When the furious nephew (now son-in-law) confronts him, Laban plays it cool. Indeed, he seems to almost blame Jacob, the hick from Canaan, for his ignorance regarding proper etiquette: “We don’t do it that way in our country,” he chides. “We don’t marry off the younger daughter before the older. Enjoy your week of honeymoon, and then we’ll give you the other one also. But it will cost you another seven years of work.”[9]
What can Jacob do but accept the outcome? He grudgingly spends the first week with Leah, and then with no fanfare Laban gives him Rachel. So now Jacob has two wives, each with a maid, Zilpah serving Leah and Bilhah serving Rachel. And Jacob is himself a maid, serving Laban for seven more years.
Jacob and the flocks of Laban
With Leah, the wife he does not love, Jacob has four sons. But he is unsuccessful in getting Rachel pregnant. She blames him. He retorts that he is not the God of babies. But at her suggestion, he takes her maid Bilhah to his bed, and she gives birth to Dan first and later Naphtali.
Then Leah gets back into the competition and sends her maid Zilpah to bed with Jacob. Gad is the first to be born of this union, then Asher. But then he is back with Leah, and she gives birth to Issachar, and not long after to Zebulun, and finally a daughter, Dinah.
After carrying out his term of service for Laban—and after giving Rachel a much-longed-for son, Joseph, Jacob wants out. He confronts his father-in-law: “Let me go back home. Give me my wives and children for whom I’ve served you. You know how hard I’ve worked for you.”[10]
Laban responds by asking Jacob to tell him what he is owed. Jacob points out that under his supervision Laban’s wealth has greatly increased. Again, Laban asks Jacob how much he owes him. So Jacob proposes that he cull out all the spotted and speckled sheep and goats from Laban’s flocks and keep them for himself.
Laban readily agrees. But Laban is Laban. He is a lying cheat. It’s part of his DNA. Before Jacob can carry out the agreement, Laban does his own culling, separating out all the animals that should have been Jacob’s and sending them off to pasture with his sons. Jacob remains calm; he continues to tend the flock, minus the spotted and speckled ones.
He has no need to protest because he has a magical formula up his sleeve and a clever plot in mind that he carries out with God’s blessing. He peels part of the bark off tree branches so as to make white stripes on them. Then he places them in front of the watering tanks. When the sheep and goats mate near the striped branches they produce striped and speckled offspring. And Jacob makes sure that only the healthiest of the flock mate in front of the striped sticks. It appears on the surface to be a crazy scheme, but it works. His flocks and herds increase in number, as do his donkeys and camels.
No surprise that Laban and his sons are upset. Their stock is tanking while Jacob is multiplying his wealth through insider trading. Tensions are rising. Should Jacob stay in the market and continue to see his profits soar, or should he get out before it’s too late? God has the answer. He tells Jacob to go home, promising him protection.
I confess I have no idea just what it is that Jacob does in his specialized program of animal husbandry. I do not know how peeled saplings of any trees . . . influence the genetic pool of the herds.
Burton L. Visotzky, The Genesis of Ethics
Jacob sends word to Rachel and Leah to get things ready for the move. He explains how their father has repeatedly cheated him and how he has nevertheless prospered under God’s provision. In fact, God speaks through an angel in a dream and confirms that he had been the one behind the mating of the flocks that gave Jacob such an abundance of wealth.
If Jacob is concerned that he will have a hard sell with Laban’s daughters, he is pleasantly surprised. Both Rachel and Leah testify that they too have been treated badly by their father and that they stand to receive nothing from his estate. They both readily cast their lot with their husband. So the three of them bide their time, and when Laban is away shearing sheep, they make their break, but not before Rachel steals the family idols.
They are on the road to Canaan, moving as fast as the cumbersome caravan can go. They are three full days out, across the Euphrates and into Gilead, before Laban learns of what has happened. Laban for once has been outsmarted, and he is not about to let his son-in-law get away with it. He rounds up his best men, and they are off in hot pursuit.
After seven days they catch up with the caravan and set up tents nearby. But before Laban can confront Jacob, God comes to him in a dream, warning him not to provoke Jacob. So Laban calms down, determined to do nothing rash. He approaches Jacob with questions rather than brute force. Why did you sneak away? Why did you trick me? What was your point—not even letting me kiss my daughters and grandkids “good-bye”? He implies that Jacob has affronted him for no good reason. Why would a father not want the best for his daughters and grandchildren? Why, he wonders, didn’t Jacob inform him so that he could have sent them all off with a grand farewell party?
Then comes the threat. He tells his son-in-law that if he had wanted to, he could have decimated Jacob and his entourage on the spot. But God came to him in a dream, and he now understands why Jacob would want to go back home to Canaan. Okay, he can let bygones be bygones. But there’s a bigger issue. What about the household gods? Why did you steal them? Jacob is taken aback. He knows nothing about the theft. He surely didn’t steal any gods. In fact, if Laban finds out that someone in his camp did it, that person will be put to death. For that matter, Laban can take anything he finds that actually belongs to him.
So Laban begins the search through the tents. He finally comes to Rachel’s tent. She has hidden the gods inside a cushion on which she rests while her father searches. “Rachel said to her father, ‘Don’t think I’m being disrespectful, my master, that I can’t stand before you, but I’m having my period.’ So even though he turned the place upside down in his search, he didn’t find the household gods.”[11]
Now Jacob has the upper hand. Apparently Laban himself or one of his sons has misplaced the household gods. Jacob and company are innocent. But more than that, Jacob has worked his heart out for twenty years, and what thanks does he get? He lashes out in anger: “I was out in all kinds of weather, from torrid heat to freezing cold, putting in many a sleepless night. . . . I slaved away fourteen years for your two daughters and another six years for your flock and you changed my wages ten times. . . . You would have sent me off penniless.”[12]
But Laban comes back at Jacob and insists everything Jacob possesses is actually his—daughters, grandchildren, flocks, everything. But he relents and agrees to settle things with a covenant and let Jacob and his household (with all his possessions) go in peace. Jacob and his children build a monument of stones to serve as a witness to this covenant. Then Laban offers a blessing that includes a warning for Jacob not to mistreat his wives or to trespass into Laban’s territory. With the conclusion of the blessing, Jacob offers a sacrifice and worships God, and they all have a meal together. In the morning Laban heads for home after kissing and blessing his daughters and grandchildren.
Jacob and his entourage also break camp and continue their journey to Canaan. On the way he meets angels and once again marks the spot. But with every hour that they move closer to home he becomes more agitated about Esau. He fears he is still on his brother’s most wanted list and knows that he and his household and all his livestock can hardly sneak back home unnoticed. So he sends a servant ahead to break the news. On Jacob’s instructions the servant is to tell Esau essentially that after staying with Laban all these years he has acquired wealth. Such a message would not necessarily have endeared him to Esau. But he ends the message by begging for Esau’s approval, calling him my master.
Really. Does Jacob truly regard Esau as master? Jacob is clever—and is shaking in his boots. He knows all too well that he and his servants are no match for the hardened hairy hunter and all his men.
The servant returns. The news is grim. Esau is on his way with four hundred men. That’s a small army. It’s too late to rush back to Laban. Esau would overtake him in a day. So he devises a plan. He separates his entire household into two groups, each headed in different directions. If Esau strikes at one, the other has a chance of escaping. That is the best strategy he can muster, but he still has an ace up his sleeve: God. For Jacob, scheming often trumps spirituality. This time, however, he prays, begging for mercy while at the same time reminding God of his promises of protection.
After a restless night he comes up with an addendum to his plan. He sends gifts ahead for his brother, his master. And not merely a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates. Esau will be impressed with the hundreds of goats and sheep, dozens of cows, camels, and donkeys. All this wealth, Esau will learn, is a gift from his servant Jacob.
Jacob assumes Esau holds a major grudge and that the gifts will assuage his anger. That night he sends his whole household ahead, while he stays behind alone. He is so fearful of Esau that he may be thinking that his wives and children are safer without him. But alone in the dark night of the desert he has an unforgettable encounter. Indeed, it is one of the strangest episodes in Scripture.
Lying down in preparation for a night’s sleep, he realizes that someone has snuck up on him. A man begins wrestling with him—a struggle that continues until dawn. But Jacob seems to have the upper hand, even after the man purposely throws his hip out of joint. By daybreak, the man is begging for mercy, but Jacob refuses to let him go until he blesses him. The man asks his name and then changes it from Jacob to Israel (meaning God-Wrestler). Only then does he bless him. Jacob lets him go and names the spot Peniel because that is where he saw the face of God.
The next morning Jacob leaves with a limp, catches up with the rest of his household, and sees in the distance Esau coming toward him with four hundred men. He quickly makes some readjustments by moving to the head of the caravan with the maid servants directly behind him, next Leah and her children, with Rachel and Joseph pulling up the rear. He bows in obeisance before Esau, but Esau will have none of it. He runs to give his long-lost brother a bear hug. He kisses him, and they both break down weeping.
Esau asks about all the people with Jacob, and Jacob begins the introductions, all of them bowing before Esau. Esau says he cannot accept the gifts—that he has wealth of his own. But Jacob insists, and he agrees. Esau offers to lead the way home, but Jacob wants to take his time, for his exhausted family and livestock.
The next major incident in Jacob’s life involves his daughter Dinah, and once again we see him in a less-than-admirable light. He does not take charge of the situation when she is violated, nor does he prevent the carnage that follows.
Later God tells him to go to Bethel, the spot where he dreamed of a ladder ascending to heaven. Jacob gathers his family to make the journey, and only then does he tell them to throw away all their idols—and to bathe and put on clean garments. Jacob takes their idols and charms and buries them, and then the whole company sets off for Bethel. On the way he observes an unusual sense of foreboding among the locals. In fact, in every village they pass the people regard him with such dread that they dare not even inquire of his plans or pursue him as an enemy.
When they arrive at Bethel, Jacob builds yet another altar, and God confirms his new name of Israel and once again blesses him. They have begun their journey of departure when Jacob’s world is turned upside down in sorrow. His beloved Rachel dies in childbirth. Baby Benjamin, however, lives. After this Jacob returns to Mamre, where his aged father is residing. When he dies, Jacob and Esau meet for the burial rituals.
Like his parents, who each gave preferential treatment to a favorite son, Jacob loves his son Joseph more than any of his many other sons—and daughter. Nor does he attempt to conceal his blatant favoritism. He bestows on Joseph a richly colored garment, a most envied fashion statement. Why would Jacob do this? It would only incite envy in his other sons. It’s unconscionable. He would end up paying dearly for his actions.
At one point Jacob scolds Joseph, particularly when Joseph interprets a dream foretelling that even Jacob himself will bow before him. Dreams are not to be ignored, however, and Jacob broods over what his son has said. Even though his older brothers are seething over Joseph’s self-aggrandizement, Jacob sends the boy to check up on them where they are tending the flocks. The next news Jacob hears is that his son is dead, and there is proof. His beautiful coat has been bloodied and torn to pieces. Jacob is inconsolable, certain that he will grieve for his son until the day he dies.
The years go by, Jacob still grieving over Joseph. Then in one of its usual cycles, famine strikes the land—no food anywhere except in the storehouses of Egypt. Jacob sends his ten sons for food, all but Benjamin, the youngest. Only nine sons return with food; they show their father the grain they have brought home but report that a leading Egyptian official has jailed Simeon until they return with Benjamin. Jacob adamantly refuses. But the famine worsens. Finally he relents and lets Benjamin return to Egypt with his brothers.
The next thing he hears from his sons is almost impossible to comprehend: Joseph is alive and well and a ruler in Egypt. How can this be? But then he sees all the wagons that Joseph has sent for the household’s relocation. With God’s specific directive, Jacob’s family caravan makes its way south. Joseph goes out to meet the wagons. When he sees his father, they hug and weep. Joseph takes him to meet Pharaoh, who inquires of the patriarch’s age—130—and gives him the best land available for grazing.
Jacob spends the next seventeen years in Egypt with his entire household. Knowing his time on earth is running low, he asks Joseph to take an oath promising to bury him back in Canaan. Before he dies he blesses Joseph’s two sons, the younger Ephraim with a greater blessing than the older Manasseh.
On his deathbed Jacob gives a final acknowledgment and blessing to each of his sons and then dies sometime after his 147th birthday. His body is embalmed in Egypt and returned to Canaan, accompanied by his entire family and a large contingent of Egyptian officials. There his body is laid to rest on the very plot that Abraham had purchased for Sarah’s burial. Was Esau among the mourners? There is no biblical record, but if he were still living and in good health, he no doubt would have wanted to pay his respects to his twin brother.
Esau: Losing a Birthright and Blessing
Esau was an odd infant, perhaps appearing to resemble a furry animal as much as a human baby. He was covered in a blanket of hair, not just his head but his whole body. Whether his mother Rebekah rejected him from infancy or whether that came later is not recorded, but it is clear that as he was growing up she loved his twin Jacob far more than she loved him. To grow up rejected by a mother can have serious psychological consequences. Esau’s grandmother Sarah had loved Isaac and spurned Ishmael, but Ishmael had his own doting mother Hagar. In this case there is only one mother to cling to, and she is turning away to gush over his brother.
While it is true that Father Isaac favors Esau, there is no reason to believe that the two of them were close. Esau is a sportsman, and Isaac approves of him because he has a taste for the wild game Esau hunts and brings home.
The incident Esau is most remembered for may have involved one of his hunting expeditions. He has been far out in the country and, famished, comes home, where he finds Jacob cooking up some pottage. Despite his hunger, his twin will not share. He will sell the stew, however, for Esau’s birthright. One might wonder why this incident did not turn violent. Esau, the rough, hairy, ruddy-faced hunter, might have pushed Jacob aside and cleaned up the whole pot in a dozen gulps. But he gives in and gives up his birthright, perhaps fearing the consequences of laying a hand on Mama’s boy.
When hard times come to Canaan, the household moves down to Gerar in the land of the Philistines. Here Isaac and Rebekah are involved in a deceptive scheme with King Abimelech, and the servants play an important role involving water rights and well digging, but Esau and Jacob seem to be sidelined during this period of their lives.
At age forty, however, Esau makes a major decision that will alienate him from his parents. He goes a-courting and ends up marrying two Hittite women—Judith and Basemath—women who cause Isaac and Rebekah endless grief.
The next big episode for Esau is when his father calls him in to receive the blessing. Isaac, thinking he is near death, asks Esau to get his gear, go out game hunting into the country, and return and prepare for him a tasty meal. They will eat together, and the meal will be followed by the blessing. Such an assignment is right up Esau’s alley. He goes out, stalks and waits for the kill, and comes home with meat ready for the fire. He has gone through this ritual before, and he knows exactly how his father likes the food prepared. With the bowl in hand he goes to the old man’s tent.
Esau is stunned to hear his father ask who he is. Has he lost his mind? Seeing his father virtually go into a convulsion is more shocking, especially when Isaac bursts out with the news that he has already blessed the son who has just brought him a meal. Jacob has received the blessing, and there is no taking it back. Amid his howls of anguish, Esau begs his father to at least bless him as well. But his father holds firm, and makes the situation sound worse than it actually is. The earth’s bounty and heaven’s mercy will be lavished on Jacob, and he will rule over Esau.
For although Esau, with his posterity, took precedence over Jacob in his lifetime, his status, like a bubble, burst as soon as he died. . . . The splendor attributed to Esau was like a vanishing vapor and all of his pomp disappeared like the closing of a scene onstage.
John Calvin, Genesis
Amid his weeping, Esau keeps begging his father to bless him. So Isaac offers up what might be termed a reverse blessing: “You’ll live far from Earth’s bounty, remote from Heaven’s dew. You’ll live by your sword, hand-to-mouth, and you’ll serve your brother.” But he continues, adding a final qualifier: “But when you can’t take it any more you’ll break loose and run free.”[13] Hardly enough to restrain the rage. The tears have turned into venom. Esau is livid. He walks out, and under his breath he is spewing hatred: I will kill the bastard. The old man will die within days, and Jacob will be dead meat.
Warned by a servant who overhears Esau’s rage, Rebekah sends her favorite son packing. Esau remains with his parents on the home place. His rage restrained, he sets out to get another wife. He’s now the only son left, and in an effort to please his parents he marries his cousin Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael. His life is not nearly so grim as his father had foretold. Indeed, while his brother slaves away for Uncle Laban, Esau is accumulating wealth. Perhaps he often wonders about his brother—whether he’s alive or dead.
When Jacob returns after twenty years of hard labor, Esau appears to have long gotten over the birthright-and-blessing fraud. He welcomes his brother with open arms, albeit after a parade of livestock has been sent ahead as a peace offering. Jacob has missed some of the most critical events of a son’s life, including the death and burial of his mother. The greetings and introductions surely must have included reminiscences and details of her passing.
Like his twin brother Jacob, Esau has been given another name: Edom. And like Jacob, he has multiple wives—including Canaanite women and two daughters of Ishmael—and many children. He likewise has prospered, even more so after Jacob returns and gives him huge gifts of livestock. But like Abraham and his nephew Lot, the brothers are forced to separate because the land simply cannot support so many herds and flocks. Esau moves to the hilly region of Seir and becomes the father of the people known as Edomites.
For Esau and Jacob, at least in regard to their mended relationship, this seems to be a happily ever after story. Whether Esau became aware of Jacob’s grief over the presumed loss of Joseph and the family’s flight to Egypt due to famine is not recorded, but there is no reason to doubt that he would have cared deeply. The reconciliation and goodwill they have shown to each other, however, will not be passed down to succeeding generations.
Leah: Unwanted Wife
Leah in the eyes of Jacob is simply Rachel’s sister. He is not attracted to her sexually or emotionally. She is not beautiful like her sister; she has weak eyes—an unspecified eye blemish that detracts from her physical appearance. Though she is his first wife, he makes no pretense of loving her. God is not pleased. He takes Leah’s side and opens her womb. She gives birth to a son and names him Reuben. Leah sees this as an endorsement from God and a positive step in her marriage—a hopeful sign that her husband might now love her. What more can Jacob want? She has given him a son.
But Jacob still does not love her. So God opens her womb again, and Simeon is born. Yet again she gives birth to a son, Levi. Exasperated, she thinks that now, after she has given him three sons, Jacob will surely love her. But despite her longing, she is perceptive enough to see there is still no sparkle in his eye. Again she becomes pregnant and she gives birth to Judah. She will have to wait, however, before she gets another son. Jacob, perhaps at Rachel’s prodding, is no longer intimate with her.
Leah’s loneliness and depression are not easily disguised. Indeed, the names of her first three babies relate to her misery and lack of love from Jacob. Her oldest son Reuben is troubled. What can he do to cheer her up? He knows she wants another baby, always thinking that just one more will capture the heart of his father. So while he is out working the wheat harvest, he comes across some mandrakes, plants thought to have magical potency—properties that were thought to spur pregnancy in otherwise barren women.
Reuben dutifully brings them to his mother. Barren Aunt Rachel, nearby, begs Leah to have some. What! How dare she? Leah lets loose the pent-up emotions she has stifled for years: “Wasn’t it enough that you got my husband away from me? And now you also want my son’s mandrakes?”[14] She’s furious. But Rachel will not be cowed. She makes a deal: husband for mandrakes. She will let Jacob sleep with Leah if she gives up the mandrakes. Rachel has power over Jacob, and she knows it. Leah is forced into a humiliating situation. She might have thrown a left hook at her snide younger sister, but instead she hands over the mandrakes in exchange for having a night with her own husband.
Rachel: Adored Wife with False Gods
Rachel is a shepherd out in the country overseeing a large flock of sheep in a rough-and-tumble man’s world. Other shepherds waiting at the well acknowledge her routine arrival with neither catcalls nor surprise. Jacob, the stranger at the well, sees her for the first time. Here Rachel emerges from the biblical text in all her feminine glory. Laban’s daughter and Leah’s younger sister, she is drop-dead gorgeous like her aunt Rebekah (who would also become her absentee mother-in-law) and her great aunt Sarah. So stricken by her is the stranger that he goes into an adrenalin high and rolls a huge boulder away from covering the well. Then, without missing a beat, hormones still racing, he sets his sights on her. She is no doubt surprised and taken aback when the stranger begins kissing her—and weeping. Only then does he disclose that he is her cousin. She runs. What else can she do? Back home, she tells her father, and he goes to the well to offer an official welcome.
How much Rachel knows about her upcoming marriage arranged by Jacob and her father is not recorded. Nor is there any mention of friendship between them during the seven years he is laboring for her. Does she understand the custom that the oldest daughter must marry first? When her father throws the marriage feast, does she imagine it is for her as Jacob does? There is no indication that either sister plays any part in the decision-making process, as did Rebekah when she decided on her own to leave immediately with Abraham’s servant to marry Isaac.
Rachel’s name is added to a long list of barren women of the Bible. She watches Leah and her maid getting pregnant and envies them to the point of despair. It cannot be her husband’s fault. He’s virile enough to make babies with Leah and her maid. But to Jacob she wails, Give me sons or I will die. Jacob snaps back, It’s not my fault. I’m not God. Here we see Rachel’s fury, not unlike the rage Sarah vented at Abraham over Hagar. Rachel’s retort is to push a surrogate at Jacob—Bilhah her maid. Other barren women have done that very thing, but never with happy results.
When Bilhah becomes pregnant and bears a son, and becomes pregnant again, Rachel now thinks she has bested her sister. But she hasn’t. Though she has Jacob wrapped around her little finger, she’s still barren. Soon Leah has two more sons and a daughter. Finally, after years of discontent and bickering and family turmoil, God remembers Rachel and opens her womb. She is ecstatic when Joseph is born. Her humiliation is lifted, and her whole attitude seems to change.
When Jacob is conspiring to flee from Laban, he consults with the sisters and they actually agree with each other. They respond as one in their commitment to leave their father’s household and run away with him to Canaan. And so they pack up their belongings and prepare themselves for the arduous journey.
That Rachel has been depressed by her barrenness and that she has burned with jealousy toward Leah are normal reactions. The reader is not surprised. But when she steals and conceals the household gods before escaping with Jacob, her behavior is not easily explained. She acknowledges that God speaks with her husband, but she apparently cannot trust in God herself.
When her father and his men catch up with the fleeing party, he demands the household gods be returned. She panics—especially when she hears Jacob say that whoever has taken them will be put to death. Quick thinking. She hides them in a cushion and sits on it, telling her father she is sick with menstrual cramps. Later, after the entire party has arrived in Canaan, Jacob tells his family—especially Rachel—to get rid of their false gods and wash themselves and put on clean clothes.
Not long after this Rachel becomes pregnant with her second son. Things are not going well. The entire company has been traveling under the scorching sun on the dry, dusty roads. When her time comes, it’s a very difficult labor. Baby Benjamin is born healthy, but Rachel will not make it. She dies, and her body is buried on the road to Bethlehem, with a stone marking her grave. She is the first woman recorded in the Bible to have died in childbirth.
Even when you pay very close attention, they can just vanish right before your eyes. I’m referring here to the women of Genesis, who play an increasingly diminished role as the book moves along. In the beginning, man and woman got equal billing, both created in the image and likeness of their Creator. From that point onward, women seemed to get a shorter and shorter end of the stick. By now we have seen strong matriarchs, women who talk with God, women who get their own promises. We’ve seen active women who are willing to beat and banish others. We’ve seen women who are not afraid to pull a fast one to ensure that the covenant will pass on to the right member of the family. But by the time we come to Jacob, father of the people of Israel, there are more and more women who play less and less a role in the fate of the nation.
It is almost as though the crowded stage of Jacob’s tent, with four different women coming and going, demands that their speaking roles are accordingly attenuated. Sarah and Hagar each managed to occupy the entire stage when it was their turn to speak. . . . Rebecca basked in the limelight—with no women to share the stage. . . . But when Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah all have to vie for Jacob’s attention, each simply gets less airtime. . . . It comes as little surprise, then, that by the time we get to Jacob’s daughter she vanishes. And she does so in a way that is especially demeaning. [Dinah is one of Jacob’s thirteen children when the family crosses the river, but she is not counted.]
Concluding Observations
The legacy of dishonesty and manipulation left by Isaac and Rebekah is passed down most notably to Jacob. Both twins grow up learning to play the game for their own advantage, but Jacob excels as the premier trickster, second only to Uncle Laban. Jacob is arrogant and treats Leah badly. Only in old age does he mellow—and that comes through suffering. Esau, by patriarchal standards, seems in many ways to be a remarkably decent man. He forgives and forgets and welcomes Jacob home.
As wives in a polygamous marriage, Leah and Rachel play their parts. Jealousy and bickering mar their legacies. All in all, the dysfunction in the household in which Jacob grew up and the one he himself is head of is striking—far beyond the reach of routine family therapy.
It is most significant that the dead and the living are closely bound together. Indeed, Scripture tells us that when Jacob “breathed his last,” he “was gathered to his people.” Just before he dies, he gives Joseph and his other sons instructions that establish the deep and lasting connection from one generation to another long after death:
I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites.[15]
Here is Jacob at age 147, dying, surrounded by his loved ones. There is a little phrase that profoundly captures his final moments. He draws his feet up into the bed—perhaps in a fetal position. Was this recapitulating his birth? He came into the world from the womb, his arm grasping his brother’s heel, his feet no doubt kicking in a struggle to overtake his twin. Now, however, his feet are drawn up, and he is leaving the world to join the old ones who have gone before, never to struggle again.
Further Reading
Buechner, Frederick. Son of Laughter. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1994.
Garland, David E., and Diana R. Garland. Flawed Families of the Bible: How God’s Grace Works through Imperfect Relationships. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.
Klitsner, Shmuel. Wrestling Jacob: Deception, Identity, and Freudian Slips in Genesis. Teaneck, NJ: Ben Yehuda Press, 2006.
Zakovitch, Yair. Jacob: Unexpected Patriarch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.